"Hatred is not in my blood. Euphoria is what I feel in my dreams. Love is what I'm searching for." Those twenty words at the start of Morgan Saint's debut EP, 17 Hero, form a manifesto and a map for the music that follows. Saint's songs chronicle of emotional thrills and crashes, and they challenge preconceptions - notions of how pop can sound, how it works and what it can accomplish. Morgan Saint can turn deeply personal moments into soaring choruses, and transform ear-grabbing hooks into intimate singer- songwriter revelations.
Saint calls her music "moody pop," and says her goal is to craft songs match indelible melodies to lyrics that deliver substance. "I want for it to be super catchy and stay in your head, but I also want to tell a story and have people relate in a way that's real and raw," she says. "I don't want to be afraid to say things that might be a little dark or a little questionable."
The songs of 17 Hero are defined by luscious melodicism and bracing honesty. "Why don't we be friends?" the chorus of "Just Friends" asks. "Why don't we make out?" Later, over the swelling keyboards and bubbling percussion of "For God's Sake," Saint has different questions: "Should I just move on? Or were we brought together by fate?" It's a cross between the directness of a text message and the disarming privacy of a diary entry.
The five songs of 17 Hero track a process of self-discovery, in which Saint herself has become the sort of artist she says she gravitated toward when she was growing up. "During my dark times in high school, I always turned to music," she says. "One thing that helped me a lot was just seeing artists who aren't afraid to be themselves. I've always been a little bit shy. I never feel like it's important to speak unless I have something important to say. And I want at this point to share my stories with the world."
